Introduction to Employing Differences

[00:00:03] Karen: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals. 

[00:00:08] Paul: I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:00:10] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:00:11] Paul: Each episode we start with a question and see where it takes us. 

Defining Speaking Skills

[00:00:15] Paul: This week's question is: what are speaking skills?

[00:00:19] Karen: So we're in this series of the skills that we talk about, when Paul and I talk about relationship skills or needing to do skill building, that kind of thing. And last week we did listening skills, and this week we're gonna tackle speaking skills. And it really is the second side.

[00:00:37] Karen: So we talked a lot about what it takes to be a good listener. And I just wanna say that's all so much easier if the speaker is being a good speaking partner. 

The Role of the Speaker

[00:00:48] Karen: So I think a lot of this is about when I'm speaking, being thoughtful about what is the impact I'd like to have on the listener. How do I help the listener have the kind of conversation that I would like to be having with them?

[00:01:01] Karen: How do I help them do their job of taking in information that I'm giving them or empathizing with my position or that kind of thing. So what are the things that we can do in our role as speaker when it's our turn to talk and somebody else is listening to make that communication work well? 

[00:01:21] Paul: One of the ways that I think about speaking, right, when I think about what goes into this bucket, is for me, speaking is about sharing with another person, you know, in such a way that they can hear and understand it. You know, what I am thinking, what I'm feeling, what I'm wanting or needing, right?

[00:01:39] Paul: In a way that is relevant to whatever it is we're doing together. So it could be relevant to here's the state of the relationship, right? So I might be giving the other person feedback on the way that we interact. It could be that we are trying to make a decision about what we're gonna do, and so I'm sharing this is what I think we ought to do.

[00:01:58] Paul: This is the conclusions that I've come to, right? It's sharing my point of view, filtered through the relevancy of whatever we're doing together. In a way, as you point out, that's easy for the person to listen to. Both of us have talked about the fact that we've got a lot of these listening skills and so we're often able to figure out what a person is trying to say.

[00:02:19] Paul: But if you've ever been on the receiving end of that question, right? What are you trying to say here? It probably means that you could up your speaking skills a bit.

Thinking Before Speaking

[00:02:29] Karen: Yeah, and I will say, I think one of the things, and we talk about some facilitation of helping people do this, but one of the things that I think is just the very beginning is think before you speak. And that may be cliche, but it's also so true. And, you know, I don't think this has to be a rule all day, every day.

[00:02:47] Karen: If somebody comes up and says, Hey, how are you I probably can answer them without, pausing to check myself. There certainly are conversations where this doesn't apply. But relative to our content here, we're talking about for conversations that could be challenging. Usually we have some kind of warning that they're coming.

[00:03:06] Karen: Hopefully we do. and if we're the speaker hopefully we've spent some time thinking about, what is it that I want to say? How do I want to say it? And what is the outcome I'm hoping for? Why do I even want to say it to begin with? So that thinking first piece I think is super important and for just absolute clarity, if you get invited into a conversation, somebody comes up and says what was going on with you in that meeting.

[00:03:33] Karen: I think it's really legitimate to say, I want some time to think about that. Like I'd be glad to talk to you about that in an hour or tomorrow, or something, but diving into a conversation that I haven't had a chance to check in with myself and know where I am and what I want is pretty dangerous. 

[00:03:51] Paul: Yeah. Preparing yourself for a conversation is really important. I mean, you don't necessarily need to stop before you open your mouth every time. If you've done that sort of, okay, here's my objectives for this conversation. Here's what I'm wanting to have happen. If you've grounded into that before you've come into the conversation, usually you can sort of continue along that path, right?

[00:04:11] Paul: That's where the flow kind of gets going. 

Balancing Work and Relationship Goals

[00:04:14] Paul: One of the ways that Allison Pollard and I kind of frame this when we talk about having a challenging conversation is we actually talk about two different goals. There's often a goal for the work, like for whatever it is that we're doing, right?

[00:04:26] Paul: So we wanna make a decision about a thing or I wanna share my point of view because the other person's gonna make a decision and I want to influence them in some way. Or we need to hash out what's going on. So there's like something we're trying to move forward. And so there's that objective. But there's also a goal around the relationship.

[00:04:45] Paul: Like what is it that I want the other person to come away with in terms of their sense of me and their sense of us? So is it, you know, hey, I need to tell my boss about this thing that's going on, that I have some concerns about a decision that's been made. And so I need to share that, right? That's my work.

[00:05:03] Paul: But my personal goal, right? The relationship goal may be, I really want them to think of me not as an obstructionist, but as a trusted advisor. What's the feeling that I want them to have of me? And often we get wrapped up in the first one, right? Of like, oh, I just need to tell them how it is.

[00:05:20] Paul: They need to see how wrong they are and one that's likely not achievable. But two, that completely disregards the relational part of it. What do you think they're gonna think about you when you're done with that? And so I think having both of those and having thought about that stuff ahead of time then gives you kind of that filter for what it is that I do and don't wanna be bringing to this conversation. 

[00:05:45] Karen: Yeah. 

Avoiding Blame and Self-Righteousness

[00:05:59] Karen: Another way that I think about that, very much the same thing is that I think in our culture, there's a lot of framing around what do I have a right to say? What is just for me to say? What is, you know, appropriate? We love that word in culture today. What is appropriate for me to say? And my stories about that are all about, you know, they did this thing I didn't like or what's fair? Or like, there's all sorts of stuff that feeds my sense of, sort of righteousness about what's right for me to say.

[00:06:13] Karen: And I'm gonna say that that whole line of thinking tends to distract us from the piece about what you were just saying, Paul, of what is it that we would like as an outcome especially in the relational space. And if you have to choose between what I have a right to say and what's gonna give me the outcome that I want. I think that if you choose the righteousness side, you're probably cutting off your nose despite your face.

[00:06:40] Karen: You're probably going to end up with an outcome that you are worse off, even if you had a right and justices on your side. And it was completely fair. And all of those can be true. They probably aren't. But even if they're all true, the likelihood that you will end up happy with the outcome just isn't very high if that's where your thinking is. 

Recognizing and Avoiding Traps

[00:07:01] Paul: And this points to another set of speaking related skills that we've talked about before, which is kind of avoiding these traps, right? So it's not falling into blame, into self-righteousness. Into contempt, right? There's a skill to, you know, oftentimes you're feeling it, right? And you're going, I need to not say that because it's not helpful here.

[00:07:23] Paul: Recognizing, I'm probably telling myself a story that's leading me to that. And so I think there's a real skill, particularly when you need to have a conversation where you know that that stuff can come up to avoiding those things, right? And it's one of the things that when I work with senior leaders and I'm coaching them on having a difficult conversation.

[00:07:43] Paul: We kind of go through that process of figuring out what's your objective? Like how are you gonna try to get there? Like what are you gonna do? But also it's like where are the places where you might lose your emotional balance? What might come out of your mouth if you don't pay attention to that? Oh, I might totally blame for this.

[00:07:58] Paul: I might do this and other thing. And then how do you rebalance yourself? How do you avoid that? What are you gonna do instead? And there's a real skill to, and part of this is, comes out of self-awareness of knowing this is what I have a tendency to do. But catching yourself and not falling prey to those that that is a skill that you can work on and practice.

Expressing Emotions Constructively

[00:08:18] Karen: And I think the answer that we sometimes get to this is, but don't they need to know that I'm really mad about this thing that they did. And they do need to know that, but if we're talking about skilled speaking, the way that I tell them that is owning my own feelings, giving it as my perspective, creating some space for them to have a different viewpoint.

[00:08:38] Karen: Because they don't need to know that they're a horrible, rotten person who always does horrible things. That's not mine to say, and they wouldn't hear it if I said it anyway. It's not gonna help. But what they do need to know is that something that they did had an impact on me and I have feelings about it. We could go into great depth about various strategies and framing. But I wanna give the best shortcut I've got to this and you have to mean it, I will say.

[00:09:06] Karen: But if I know that I've got a very one-sided view of this, my triggers are triggered, I'm pretty unhappy. And I know that I'm not gonna be very fair in how I say it. Or maybe even if I am gonna be fair, but it's gonna be hard to hear. 

The Power of Narration

[00:09:23] Karen: If I can say at the beginning of whatever I wanna say, the story I'm telling myself is, that phrase opens up the possibility that there, it's just my story.

[00:09:34] Karen: And by the way, that's all it ever is because that's how human brains work. all I've got is the story I'm telling myself. And if I can acknowledge that. Then that's a way that I can say, this is where I am. This is what I'm thinking. This is what I've experienced. This is the impact that it had on me, where my brain went when you said that thing, or whatever it is. But it leaves the, door open for them to have a different experience, and a different understanding. So yes, they need to know that you're really mad about that thing they did, but they don't need to get the impression that you think they're a horrible person because of it. 

Creating Space for Dialogue

[00:10:08] Paul: One of the things that is packed into what you just said there, I think is really important when we're talking about speaking as a relational skill is leaving room for the other person. Right? So this is not a case where you're just monologuing out them and there's nothing that you want them to do, right? That your version of this is the truth, right? That when we're talking about collaboration and relational space and things like that. 

[00:10:31] Paul: You need to be bringing what you think and feel and want in a way that there's still room for the other person to interact with it, right? And so, when you're talking about how you know, I was angry. You did this thing, I had this feeling. What you're doing is you're creating an opportunity for dialogue around that. As opposed to you are a terrible person because you always do these things and everybody knows, and blah, blah, blah.

[00:10:55] Paul: Like, there's no room for the other person in that conversation. And so that leaving space for the other person, I think is also a skill. And again, you might even call that kind of creating dialogue where it's like you're saying things, but you're saying things in a way that there's still a room for them in it.

[00:11:11] Paul: That they've got options about how to respond to it in ways that allow them to bring their own perspective to it. So I think that's an important piece of this. 

Checking for Understanding

[00:11:20] Paul: There's another part of the leaving room for them that I think also needs to get folded into speaking, which is leaving room to find out if they actually heard you.

[00:11:30] Paul: So this is where checking for understanding is a real skill. We talked about listening last episode. And this is where things like asking the other person to paraphrase or mirror or things like that so that you know that they got you, is an important part of it. Speaking sometimes involves asking non rhetorical questions,

[00:11:51] Karen: Yeah. Absolutely. So I think we've said some things about, you know, avoid put downs and blame. Judgment. I could put in that list too. Be clear about what your objectives are so that you can speak clearly to them. We've touched on sort of that honesty. Yes. Say how you feel, but leave room for the other person to also have their own experience and their own space and leaving room for that shared understanding. And then I wanna say having given you that whole lovely list of skills, sometimes we can't.

Handling Conversations on a Bad Day

[00:12:22] Karen: Sometimes I just know I'm not in good shape for that and so I wanna say a little bit about when we're not in the position to do that. There are a couple of things, strategies that can come into play on that, like, I'm not my best self day, and I didn't come up with this, or I didn't have the capacity to do this well. One is if I need to rant, probably I should choose someone else to rant with.

[00:12:48] Karen: Go find a friend, that is not part of this or that is allied enough or that is, you know, someone who can without being hurt by it. And also without needing to gossip about it or whatever. But someone who is a safe, trusted person that I can go to, and just say all the things. Not very well, not very skillfully. Because then my objective is not to share information or maintain a relationship. Then my objective is to burn off steam. And I think that's legitimate, but you gotta be really careful who you do it with. 

[00:13:20] Paul: Yeah, we've talked before on the show about clearing, right? And about, I just need to vent, I need to get this out right? Because it allows me to then go, okay, so that's not how I want it to go, when I'm talking with the other person. But I've, at least I've seen the bad versions that I can start to refine it, right?

[00:13:36] Paul: This is my horrible zero with draft that I'm gonna throw away, and now I can come back. And sometimes you're right. That allows me to let go of things that, okay. I said it, I didn't say it to them 'cause I really shouldn't. But I've said it out loud now, and now I sometimes picture a cat vomiting a hairball up on the floor and then they just feel so much better and they walk away.

[00:13:54] Paul: Sometimes that is what we need. And you're right. And this is part of the thinking before you speak. 

Transparency in Communication

[00:14:00] Paul: There's another piece in that that we've circled around a couple of times that I also regard as a skill here, which I sometimes call it's narration or sometimes just kind of opening up the inside of your head.

[00:14:10] Paul: Here's what I'm thinking. So for example, your piece about, like, the story I'm telling myself is a type of narration, right? You're letting the person in on your thought process, you're telling them what you're trying to do, and sometimes that narration is things like. Hey, I know that this is a challenging conversation and I suspect neither of us would really like to have it, and I think it's important that we do.

[00:14:30] Paul: So that's why I'm gonna address it, right? You're talking about, or things like there's a great skill from crucial conversation called contrasting statements, right? Which is where I know that you might misinterpret this in a way that I don't want you to, and so I actually wanna address that. I know that this might sound like I'm critical of the approach that you took on this.

[00:14:49] Paul: And I don't want you to think that I'm actually working through my own misgivings about, you know, my own discomfort about blah blah, blah. Right? So you're talking about why you're talking about the things you're saying or things like, you know, I can't find a better way to say this and I'd rather say it than not, so blah, blah, blah.

[00:15:09] Paul: Right. Letting the other person sort of in on your thought processes around how you're communicating. Can be really useful because sometimes that helps them give you the benefit of the doubt, right? And sometimes it clarifies why you're saying the thing. Because that's also a thing that can help them listen. Because they may just be, why are you going on and on and on about this, right?

[00:15:31] Paul: But if you can sort of say like, I'm still trying to figure out like what the key thing is in here and I think it might be X, Y, and Z. Could you listen to this for a few minutes and see if you can pull it out for me? You're flagging them to turn up their listening, like that type of thing where you're sort of signposting what you're doing for the other person can be really helpful in terms of helping them listen to you more effectively.

[00:15:55] Karen: Yeah, and a sort of next level version of that I think is when I have enough trust and safety in a relationship that I can maybe say the things I shouldn't say. If I can start with a narration piece around, I haven't done enough of my own homework. I am not calm enough. I'm really too mad to have this conversation in a way that's very safe.

[00:16:23] Karen: Can you take it? Are you up for that? Like, if I say it right now, I'm not gonna say it very well. I'm pretty angry. I'm gonna sound pretty angry and get permission upfront. That mitigates the damage a lot. It doesn't mean you aren't then responsible for what you say. You're still responsible for what you say and still you wanna use as much skill as you've got that if I know I'm gonna say it badly, getting that permission and you can't do this with everybody.

[00:16:51] Karen: You gotta pick who you have enough of relationship with for it. But it's a really powerful thing to say, I know I'm gonna say stuff that's gonna land badly. I'm not choosing my words very well. I'm really reactive right now. And what that does is it lets the listener kind of filter for, okay, there's something real in here that I can be interested and curious about, but I shouldn't be like tweaking to every insult that comes out of this.

[00:17:20] Karen: And a lot of times that conversation can happen, but if you don't contract with it in advance, your odds go way down. 

[00:17:27] Paul: Yeah. And again, you're creating the best opportunity for the person to hear what it is you're really trying to say, even if you're not saying it at your best. I think the last thing that I had sort of on my list, we've talked about a bunch of these things kind of before and right.

[00:17:41] Paul: You're getting a little bit of a grab bagg of various speaking skills here. But for me, what follows from that is when you're speaking, you're giving the other person a peek inside your head. And sometimes that's when you're talking particularly about emotionally charged stuff, you're like, here's the story I'm telling myself.

[00:17:56] Paul: Like, that's how I got here. But also when you're making a decision, when you're in a disagreement about what the right course of action is like, you know, I was trained as a high school debater. And I have come to the conclusion that debate is generally the wrong frame for building relationship and for working well together.

[00:18:15] Paul: There are times when the ritual of debate can be really useful in terms of helping a group understand a little bit more what's going on. But when we're actually working together, we do want to lay out our reasoning. We wanna lay out our data, like what has led us to come to this conclusion?

[00:18:33] Paul: Right? Don't just give them your conclusion. Give them your line of thought. You know, how did you get to your point of view, but not in a way that it sounds like you're making your case, right? You're stacking, this is not a legal brief. What you're doing is you're being transparent about, here's the path that I walked to get here.

[00:18:53] Paul: Because I wanna know where you are seeing things differently or where you actually have different information about this or where you make sense of this differently. This is another way of creating space for the other person and inviting them into dialogue. So I wanna be able to lay that out.

[00:19:10] Paul: This is also kind of going back to think before you speak, like if I'm gonna make the case that I think we ought to do this thing, I need to actually think about, well, what is leading me to that conclusion? Do I have good data there? Can I make a good case? Not coming from that place of I believe that I am a hundred percent right and I'm just gonna blow them over with the evidence that I have.

[00:19:30] Paul: I'm gonna stack it up as high as I possibly can and give them 15 examples of why we shouldn't do this. But do it in a way that's accessible to them so that they understand where I'm coming from. That ideally at the end of that they're able to say, ah, okay, it makes sense to me that you came to this conclusion because of X, Y, and Z.

[00:19:52] Paul: Even if they disagree with my conclusion, because they're coming from a different place on it, that's what I want to be doing is laying it out in that way.

[00:20:01] Karen: And I think a kind of summary concept that touches on everything we've said is when we're speaking. We want to speak as though we're speaking to a partner, to someone that we have alignment with to someone who's on our side. So we may have different views of how we wanna go about things, but we do both want to do the things successfully.

[00:20:21] Karen: And so having that sense of, I'm speaking to somebody who's with me, who's on my side with whom I do have meaningful and useful alignment. And we're problem solving together to figure out how we move forward or how we work through the disagreement that we had or whatever. We're both on the same side.

[00:20:41] Karen: Big picture, even if sort of in the minutiae we're on different sides. That's the kind of tone I wanna have in my speaking. And if it doesn't feel like that, if it feels like I'm separating, differentiating, pushing them away, then I wanna really think about whether that's serving me. 

Tone and Its Importance

[00:20:59] Paul: The piece about tone is really important and also I think that's where the narration piece can be useful when you recognize that your tone isn't matching what your intention is. You know, as a mentor of mine, say, use your words, right? To be able to say, I realize this probably is a little more harsh than I intend it to be. 'Cause I'm not used to saying this kind of thing. Right.

[00:21:23] Paul: And to be able to do that can help mitigate that as you said. But like tone is such a critical piece of this and that's one of those things where I almost don't even know, I don't know how to teach tone. It's a skill. I think it's learnable. As a improv teacher of mine once said, I don't know that this can be taught, but I know it can be learned.

[00:21:41] Paul: I think paying attention to your tone and paying attention to what's the other person's reaction as I'm saying a thing that is absolutely a skill and a thing that you can do. And then you may need to use your words to correct some of those things as you're going along.

Summary and Conclusion

[00:21:59] Karen: So to sum up, lots to be said about speaking well, but the overall view is when you're speaking you're part of a partnership with the listener that is about sharing understanding. You wanna approach it that way. So you wanna think in advance about what is it that I want to say? What is it that I need to say?

[00:22:17] Karen: What are my thoughts feelings, opinions? And who is the right person to talk to at this moment? As in, do I need to go vent somewhere else or am I ready to talk to the person that actually I have the disagreement or conflict with, or need to share the information with? And what are my objectives there? What am I hoping will happen both in terms of the work or the content and in terms of the relationship and the tone? What do I want to be on the other side of this?

[00:22:43] Karen: And since we're assuming that generally we want a solid, comfortable working, relationship, an ongoing collaboration, we're gonna say we wanna avoid anything in the blame, judgment, put down department, you just don't wanna say those things at all. You wanna speak from your own, this is what I'm bringing. This is what I think. This is the story I'm telling myself, like showing up in that way that brings me in a really authentic way, but makes room also for the other person to show up as a person who is different than me, who has different ideas, who may have a different perspective on the thing that we're talking about.

[00:23:17] Karen: So you really wanna make room for that. We think narration is super helpful. So, hey, I know this is gonna be hard for you to hear, or I know I'm not in a good place to say this very well. Is this a good moment to say it? Or, I don't think I have the right word. I think I'm using The wrong word, but this is the closest I've got. Those kinds of things where you're sort of giving people a look into what is it that you're trying to accomplish with the communication. So that then they can adjust to where you are with the communication.

[00:23:46] Karen: And then being really thoughtful about is this the right conversation to have if in the end what I really want is to vent and tell someone how right I am. Can I find a friend? And go that way instead of just ranting and venting because I have a right to my feelings or something like that. Like be very careful of those stories that make it seem like it's okay to do a thing that in the end would not be in your best interest. And all of that really sets up your listener to do their very best to meet you and as a partnership that you're very much more likely to have success in that moving understanding. 

[00:24:24] Paul: Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:24:27] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig and this has been Employing Differences.